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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is among those urging Obama to consider options like invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution to find ways around the $16.4 trillion legal cap on government borrowing. The amendment states that the "validity of the public debt of the United States ... shall not be questioned," which some lawmakers believe permits a way out of the debt limit jam.

A letter to Obama on Friday from Reid and Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., doesn't mention the 14th Amendment, but aides to the senators said that's what they have in mind in urging the president to consider unilateral action.

"We believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promises and trigger a global economic crisis -- without congressional approval, if necessary," the letter said.

Battling House and Senate leaders have made virtually no progress on a strategy for legislation to lift the debt cap.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, insists that any debt increase be matched by equivalent spending cuts. Obama, buoyed by his re-election victory, says he won't negotiate as he did in 2011, when he traded a $2.1 trillion debt increase for tight spending limits on agency budgets and automatic, across-the-board spending cuts if a congressional "supercommittee" failed to reach a budget agreement.

"Senate Democrats cannot ignore their responsibilities for political convenience -- and the American people will not tolerate an increase in the debt limit without spending cuts and reforms," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

Seems like Boehner would have little credibility for standing fast in his position. Obama, OTOH, is repeating his message (to Cantor) from the first election: "I won."

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

Interesting, and very simple, opinion piece on Fox ... very common sense terms. If you had a teenager, to whom you gave a credit card, and the teen was irresponsible and charged to the limit, and asked you to raise the limit on the card, what would you do? Would you just eliminate his credit limit to avoid the hassle? Or would you require conditions upon the teen's use of the card to stay within the card limit?

It's not a partisan position ... it's just common sense. OTOH, most of us agree that is not a very abundant commodity among politicians.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

The more prudent course would be to find some offer that cannot be refused, a short-term trade-off utterly unassailable and straightforward. For example, offer to extend the debt ceiling through, say, May 1, in exchange for the Senate delivering a budget by that date -- after four years of lawlessly refusing to produce one.

Not much. But it would (a) highlight the Democrats' fiscal recklessness, (b) force Senate Democrats to make public their fiscal choices and (c) keep the debt ceiling alive as an ongoing pressure point for future incremental demands.
Go small and simple. Forget about forcing tax reform or entitlement cuts or anything major. If Obama wants to recklessly expand government, well, as he says, he won the election.

Republicans should simply block what they can. Further tax hikes, for example. The general rule is: From a single house of Congress you can resist but you cannot impose.

Aren't you failing the country, say the insurgents? Answer: The country chose Obama. He gets four years.
Want to save the Republic? Win the next election. Don't immolate yourself trying to save liberalism from itself. If your conservative philosophy is indeed right, winning will come. As Margaret Thatcher said serenely of the Labor Party socialists she later overthrew: "They always run out of other people's money."

Everything is about "appearances" ... and I surely buy into the appearance that all the Rs do is capitulate. However, I can see the wisdom in what Krauthammer has to say. Sort of guerilla warfare: choose small battles you can win, and plan for the future.

But the Rs have to learn the mastery of PR to present their positions. They really have failed pretty badly at that. How can the Rs be called "obstructionist", when it is the Senate that refuses to pass a budget? That is purely a PR tactic that has worked immensely well. When the POTUS presents budgets that even his own party won't address, and the Rs are called "obstructionist", that is also a PR tactic. That is easier for the Ds since the MSM supports those PR tactics, so the Rs have to devise the approach that will work better ... since obviously they haven't found yet what works against the D's PR machine.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

"But the Rs have to learn the mastery of PR to present their positions. They really have failed pretty badly at that. How can the Rs be called "obstructionist", when it is the Senate that refuses to pass a budget? That is purely a PR tactic that has worked immensely well. When the POTUS presents budgets that even his own party won't address, and the Rs are called "obstructionist", that is also a PR tactic. That is easier for the Ds since the MSM supports those PR tactics, so the Rs have to devise the approach that will work better ... since obviously they haven't found yet what works against the D's PR machine. "

Sorry to disagree with this premise, Gerry. The FIRST thing that MUST be done is for the CONSERVATIVES to out the RINOS, so we know just who the hell we are up against. Those linguini-spined east coast RINOS are as bad as any of the socialists on the Democrat side. They are in it for their power and reelection. They will spend for that reelection just as quickly as those Democrat bastards.

UB

When the one you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure.